Why Can't I Breathe?
by Arisprite
Summary: Castiel isn't sure what happened, but as he holds his little brother's body, he can't seem to stop hyperventilating. Episode tag for 8x10 Torn and Frayed.


Title: Why Can't I Breathe?

Author: Arisprite

Rating/Warning: Rated T, severe emotional distress, but nothing graphic. A dead body. Disjointed writing.

Summary: Castiel isn't sure what happened, but as he holds his little brother's body, he can't seem to stop hyperventilating.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, if I did they'd all get more hugs and cups of cocoa. Title is from Breaking Benjamin's 'Evil Angel'.

A/N: So, I was a little traumatized by last night's episode, so I scribbled this out at work, and typed it up when I came home. Basically, Cas POV on Earth, trying to understand what just happened. It isn't a pleasant experience. Episode tag for 8x10 Torn and Frayed.

* * *

Castiel didn't make it far from the Winchesters before he was forced to stop. Weakness, _despair_ spread through his body, and he knew he wouldn't make it to Heaven, not without a pause, a rest. He gently laid Samandriel's body-his vessel Alfie's body- on the grassy lawn of the forest grove. It was a forgotten corner of a park just across town from that ninth abandoned warehouse.

The calm mask he'd worn, the numbness he felt while talking to Dean about what had happened was cracking. Blood dripped down his face, and his eye was throbbing, and he didn't know why?

_Why?_

He was asking, about more than just his minor pain. What had just happened?

Castiel knelt on the grass, clutching Samandriel's body still in his arms, across his lap, while he panted. Flinched, as the strange flashes in his head re-assaulted his memory, as he recalled the panic, the way his vessel's heart had beat furiously with fear. Samandriel urgently saying words he could not comprehend. Who was controlling them? The name Naomi, and how just the word constricted his throat, and made his breath tremble. Castiel's hand moving almost of its own volition to stab his little brother through the chest.

_Why?_

The question was broken, shattered, even in his own mind. Castiel's breath grew ragged, and a rushing seemed to increase in his brain. He realized he didn't remember the last time he didn't have a terrible pounding in his head.

He didn't understand. What had he told Dean and Sam? That Samandriel had attacked him, and tried to kill him. Hadn't he? Castiel remembered Samandriel's desperate grab for his arms, surprisingly strong despite his wounds. Hadn't he just been talking? Or what his memory conjuring tricks the way Dean's had. Had he been attacking?

Castiel groaned as his headache increased. His sword had dropped into his palm with a thought, and in the next moment, Samandriel was staring at him in shock, the light of his grace flooding his eyes as he died. Died at Castiel's hand. Another of his family, murdered with that blade.

The act hadn't registered somehow, not at first. Castiel had followed the other angel to the ground, curling over him, as if he could somehow protect him now. He'd held him close, hand around his shoulders, pressing through foreheads together, feeling the leftover blood smear between them. His eyes burned, and something dribbled down his cheek.

In that same daze, he'd responded to Sam and Dean's questions. Toneless and dead feeling, words had spilled from his mouth. He could barely remember them now. He felt a mild shock that the liquid dripping from his eye was blood and felt like it was a betrayal to Samandriel. He should have been crying. He wanted to cry. Instead the red smeared on his fingers.

Castiel flew away, some impulse saying to get Samandriel to Heaven.

_Why?_

He didn't go to Heaven. He'd not been back since he'd decimated the place. How could he return with another body, another of his siblings dead by his own hand?

Castiel choked on his already too quick breathing. Pain tore through his chest, purely emotional, but crippling all the same, and he bent forward almost heaving as dry sobs wrenched through him. Confusion, panic, his limbs were shaking and he didn't...didn't know what was happening! His throat was tightened, and he couldn't breath through it.

His eyes flickered, looking around for something, anything to save him. The forest was thin here, man made, the light from the street lamp on the other side of the fence-too close, to bright. It glittered on the drying blood on Samandriel's face, his shirt, the blade that still was gripped in Castiel's hand.

It was then that he began to hyperventilate in earnest, gasping again and again, flinging the sword from him like it was on fire, scrambling backwards, out from under Samandriel's dead weight, away from his crime. His hands rose to his hair, probably staining blood all through it, but he couldn't stop himself from tearing, pulling, the tiny pains something to hold onto. There wasn't enough air in the world.

There was a gasp from behind him, nearly unheard through the noisy sound of his own breathing. Castiel froze, no longer breathing at all, shivering in the darkness. Perhaps it was someone come to punish him, to kill him for what he'd done. He'd welcome it.

"Is that a body?!" A young voice asked out of the shadows, too loudly, echoed by his little friends.

"Oh my g-"

Castiel leapt forward, grabbing his sword, and laid a hand on Samandriel's shoulder. The human teenagers scattered back at his sudden movement, but he ignored them. He launched them both into flight.

Where didn't matter now.


End file.
